Posted by fxckfeelings on December 20, 2012
When you believe in the value of a close family, it’s natural to take on the role of diplomat when a conflict between some of your nearest and dearest threatens to make you all distant and estranged. Unfortunately, there are some disagreements that can’t be resolved, be they by diplomat or total destruction, but that’s not reason to despair; there’s much you can do to be helpful and cement relationships that do work if you allow negative feelings to exist without blame, and respect the value of spending limited amounts of time with family you have to be with. After all, a good diplomat knows that peace isn’t found through open togetherness, but through respectful time apart.
–Dr. Lastname
Please note: There will be no post on Monday due to Christmas Eve. Happy holidays to all (and if that doesn’t happen, you know how to reach us).
My sister and I have been raised by our single mother, and I have excellent relationships with both of them. Unfortunately, my sister and our mother’s relationship has always been difficult and it’s getting worse. My sister recently revealed that she had been sexually abused by one of my mother’s boyfriends, and inexplicably, I felt like I knew it all along. My mother was obviously distraught by the news, although I don’t know that my sister and her have had any deep discussions around that issue. My sister did briefly see a shrink but never went on a full therapy. In a nutshell, I think my sister has built a lot of resentment towards my mother and their disagreements/fights are becoming more and more bitter, to the extent that my mother is becoming less and less inclined to have a relationship with my sister. I’m tired of being in the middle of it all and have decided to let them deal with their issues themselves. I don’t like to see them unhappy but it seems to me that they refuse to take the necessary steps to heal their relationship. Am I right in deciding to stay out of it? Or is it my duty to keep trying to mend their relationship?
When two people you love are estranged, it feels like your only choice is to try to get them to reconcile or give up entirely—the “Parent Trap” trap. Fortunately, there’s a third option, although it’s not very Disney, and there’s no happy ending.
Your third choice happens once you accept the fact that their reconciliation is neither your responsibility nor under your control. You didn’t pull them apart, you can’t put them together, but you don’t need them to pull you apart, either. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 3, 2012
Because resentment can be so painful and ugly, people spend lots of time trying to get rid of it, usually by talking it out, trying to beat it out of themselves, or outdoing themselves in their efforts to become so rich and powerful that they’ll have nothing to resent in the first place. In reality, however, resentment tends to linger no matter what you say, do, or earn, and people do less harm when they accept that fact. So, while your heart may become stained with resentment, it can’t color your values or control your actions. Better to focus on managing your urge to kill someone than kill yourself trying to make that urge go away.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t stand resenting my brother day and night, but that’s what I’ll have to do if I don’t speak to him about his decision to claim our late father’s summer cottage, where we used to go when we were kids. He feels he’s entitled to it because he’s spent more time there over the years (since I went away for school and grad school, and he didn’t), but I moved back a while ago and I’m the one with kids, and I want them to enjoy that place as much as my brother and I did. He’s a rigid guy who never gives an inch and always gets his way, and the executor has already ruled on it, but I can’t stand the idea of living the rest of my life nursing resentment. I’ll feel much better letting him know how I feel, getting it out of my system, and showing him that I’m not afraid. My goal is to handle my feelings as effectively as possible.
It’s hard to nurse resentment against an unfair or unfeeling brother, especially now that he’s submitted what’s only the most recent chapter in his many-volume history of making you feel bullied or pushed aside. By having it out with him, you’re hoping to make this history, well, history, and begin fresh with new tales of him being better-behaved because he knows he can’t push your around.
Trouble is, the one thing that’s harder than nursing said resentment is expressing it to a brother who doesn’t accept criticism, and winding up with a family feud. Whatever resentment you get off your chest will come back doubled and re-doubled, so if anything ends, it will be his willingness to speak to you and your ability to set foot inside that cottage again. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 15, 2012
Whether you’re pushed into a major decision by loving emotions or anger and disappointment, watch out; the forces behind your decision might be pushing you off a cliff. The stronger your feelings, the more important it is to take a deep breath and figure out the risks and benefits of what you’re about to do before doing something major (or, if your feelings are negative, even opening your mouth). In either case, gather facts, do your homework, and map out consequences before push comes to shove and you commit yourself to actions you can’t take back.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife and I have three kids, but we’ve felt a little empty since our youngest girl hit ten and stopped being cuddly, so we’re thinking about adopting. My wife is a stay-at-home mom who’s a little moody but loves kids and has been a good parent, and I work hard at a tough career, but I’m usually around all the time on weekends. My goal is to figure out whether we can make adoption work.
Most people think that deciding on a big, emotional commitment requires a big, emotional process; i.e., since nothing causes more emotion than marriage or parenthood, decisions about getting married or having kids should arise from emotional resolutions.
While this might be a common assumption, it’s also a common refrain of this blog that such an assumption is very, very wrong.
Instead of relying on loving emotions to direct your course, consider the conditions necessary to making an adoption work. If certain conditions aren’t met, it won’t. It’s that simple.
Those are the conditions that need your closest attention, not whatever’s percolating in your heart, or, God forbid, your gut (which, as we’ve often said, is where your shittiest decisions originate, pun intended). WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 29, 2012
It takes strong character to declare that you’re where the buck stops, but when the problem is a runaway 18-wheeler, taking it on looks less brave and more foolish. Good leaders should be willing to take responsibility and work hard, but if they don’t develop other skills, they’re in deep trouble, bound to be taken down (or run over) by pride in their own problem-solving strength. So if you happen to be one of those can-do, bring-it-on overachievers, don’t put all your faith in the value of hard work and responsibility before you learn to respect your limits and the greater value of working within them. If you don’t learn to pass the buck once in a while—be it at work, in your marriage, or in life in general—you’ll be the one passed over.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve worked for the same company for 25 years and I take pride in my reputation as a capable project manager who can always find ways to get good results on deadline and under budget. The last project, however, was terribly under-resourced and we just haven’t been able to satisfy all the people who lined up for our product. I poured my heart and soul into it and now I feel terrible, because I always take complete responsibility for any project that I manage, so this failure is mine, and I’m not too cowardly to admit it. I wish my boss would get me the resources I need, but he’s useless. It’s gotten me very depressed. My goal is to get through to my boss that he has to get me those resources or I’m going to go down in flames.
Sturdy competence, total commitment, and self-reliance are wonderful day-to-day traits in a manager, but they backfire in the face of The Impossible Project, becoming dangerous to both your career and mental health (and a gift to my profession).
No matter how competent, motivated, efficient and otherwise gifted you are, sooner or later you encounter The Impossible Project, like the great white whale. It will always be underperforming, over-budget, and overtime, and it will have no solution. The only question is, how many people will it drag down into the briny depths along with it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 22, 2012
People often equate their freedom of speech with the freedom to spew, which is nothing other than the freedom to hurt themselves and others; on the other hand, exercising one’s freedom to stew and stay passive-aggressively silent isn’t much better. Rights come with responsibility, so even though you are entitled to open your mouth, you should shut up and think about consequences. Then, when you need to make an unpopular statement, you can do so with respect while protecting yourself from sounding and acting like a jerk. As the ol’ “Team America” song goes, “Freedom isn’t free,” but if the price is taking the time to consider the weight of your words, it’s worth the bill.
–Dr. Lastname
I think a father should be able to tell his son what he really thinks, so I let him know I wasn’t pleased about his not wanting to invite my sister to his wedding. I know he doesn’t particularly like her (he finds her pushy and inappropriate) and his fiancée likes her even less, but I need my sister to be there for me and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I’ve told by son I’m willing to pay for the extra plate if he’ll just do this for me, but he says I’ve always tried to control his life and he feels abused by my criticism. I don’t know how we can have a real relationship, though, if I don’t let him know when he makes me angry. My friends don’t have this problem with their kids. I don’t think it helps him to get away with being a jerk when I’ve supported him all his life and what I’m asking for isn’t such a big deal.
You’re not alone in having wedding-focused emotional needs that contradict common sense strategic goals—we’ve written before about how people foolishly think weddings have more to do with floral arrangements than a family’s future—but that doesn’t mean expressing those emotional needs, or emotions in general, isn’t a terrible idea.
Just to clarify, your strategic goal is to visit with your future grandchildren and keep your son’s marriage stable—and not by giving your son and his wife a common enemy they both hate more than they irritate one another (we’re not talking about your dear sis). WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 23, 2012
There’s nothing better at inducing helplessness than being molested as a child, but it’s easy to forget that helplessness is a feeling, not a measure of strength and character. If you’ve been traumatized in the past, don’t let the helplessness of this or any other overwhelming experience make you feel like an ineffective victim. Instead, learn to respect your existing effectiveness, regardless of how helpless you felt then or still feel now. You may always feel helpless, but your very survival is proof that you’re stronger than your emotions.
–Dr. Lastname
My life is pretty stable now, but I’ve had a lot of major problems this last year and, in the middle of my troubles, I started to remember being molested by a family friend when I was 14, just after I hit puberty and got breasts overnight. I’ve been struggling to get my daughter help for a major health problem, and then I got fired and had to find a new job, and then my mother started to slip into dementia. Now, I’ve got a new job, my daughter is getting good help, and my father is taking good care of my mother, but I can’t get over a rising feeling of helplessness. If it’s because I was molested, my goal is to get over it.
Before you can even try to recover from the helplessness of current crises, you have to get around the sneaky way it has of making you feel personally ineffective, in part by playing on your memories of the helplessness of being molested. After a while, you can feel like you’re drowning, which is about as helpless as it gets.
In other words, you want to move forward, but helpless feelings cause helpless beliefs by awakening helpless memories. Your mind gets stuck in the notion that you couldn’t do anything in the past, you’re not able to do anything now, then things will probably get worse, and you’ll be powerless to prevent it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 21, 2012
A healthy marriage is a lot like a healthy person; one can have nagging injuries and superficial imperfections, but if there are no major malfunctions, consider yourself fit. Your partner may make a good spouse despite a roving eye, or your partner may admit that his/her version of perfect love is actually deeply flawed, revealing that your healthy marriage has actually had a malignant tumor the whole time. If you want a love that lasts, find out all you can about what your candidate has always been like as a partner before you tie the knot. Then, even if your relationship is occasionally under the weather, it still has the stuff for a long life.
–Dr. Lastname
I don’t want to get hurt again by my wife’s infidelities. We’ve been married for 30 years and she’s been a good mother to our kids and a hard worker, but every few years she gets over-involved with someone she’s working with or meets socially, and crosses the line, and then she’s immediately very sorry. Last time she did it, it took me a year of therapy to get over the pain and start to trust her again. Now I see signs that it’s happening again, and I just want to withdraw and spare myself the hurt of another episode. My goal is not to be repeatedly humiliated and angry.
Of course you never want to feel humiliated or betrayed by your spouse, and her behavior definitely violates your wedding vows (or at least the implied vow to keep it in your pants).
On the other hand, people have their weaknesses, which means bad behaviors that they don’t recognize or control or both. The bottom line for you then is not how much you’re hurting, but whether the value of your partnership outweighs your hurt. It’s the Carmella Soprano/First Lady conundrum. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 16, 2012
When what you’d like to change about yourself is a predominant feeling, like anxiety or depression, you end up in a double bind; you’re stressed that you feel stressed, you’re angry that you feel angry, and, especially if you’re depressed, you find yourself wanting a feeling-free existence. Since changing your personality isn’t possible, you need to settle for symptom management rather than total relief. Ultimately, certain feelings are hard to bear and feelings about feelings make them worse, but keeping feelings in check is possible, and something you can feel good about.
–Dr. Lastname
I know I have a pretty good life, but I seem to always be stressed, which seems largely self-inflicted due to my high standards for myself at work and home. I tend to overdo it trying to meet my self-imposed goals and feel stressed a lot trying to achieve, and upset when I don’t meet this standard. For example, I freak out if my work isn’t done on time, and if I don’t get all my chores done by the end of the weekend. I generally freak out if anything is in my inbox for more than a few days. My goal is to chill out and enjoy life more, instead of stressing out over impossible deadlines, and to more effectively prioritize what actually needs to be done ASAP vs. things that can wait.
There are many analogies made using the gazelles around the watering hole, but as tragic as that one weak gazelle’s fate is, at least, before he died, he wasn’t suffering from stress.
Sub a watering hole for a water cooler, and you see why stress has its advantages; to the degree that stress and high standards push you to work harder and do a better job, they help you survive. Gurus on TV tell you about the advantages of relaxation, but gazelles will tell you otherwise. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 12, 2012
Strong feelings don’t make for good decisions, but they can’t force you to make bad decisions if you follow your usual procedures. First, figure out what’s unrealistic, knowing that it usually involves getting some much desired love and/or respect. Second, do a bit of healthy sulking with a lot of sad music, movies, and/or junk food. Finally, cut the sulking, summon your courage, and figure out how to make the best of things, respecting whatever you do next. What you decide might cause some strong, bad feelings, at least at first, but if you follow these instructions, you’ll always feel good about your choices in the long run.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been in love with this guy since the first year of high school, and now I’m 23 and still think I can’t get over him! We have been good friends and that made it harder for us to share our feelings (which, by his actions and behavior, I felt he had, too) and then we kissed two or three times when we were both drunk. The first kiss was last year and the second now after one year has passed, but we decided to let that pass us because he thought I’m far better than him, and that he is a loser, which I of course don’t agree with. Eventually I tried to move on and have a relationship with this other guy from work who is great and we have a great time together, but I feel that we connect only physically, and when I was with him and saw my first love all the feelings came back to me! I don’t know what to do. If I stay in a relationship with the guy from work I would feel that it isn’t fair to him, but I clearly see no future with the guy I’m in love with.
The first step in solving any problem is deciding what you can’t change, rather than pursuing what you have the strongest feelings about. For example, you might feel really strongly that you want to eat cake all day, but you’d probably resist pursuing it since you can’t change the fact you’d blow up like a deer tick.
Problems with love are no different; it may feel like you need to satisfy an emotion, but you really just have to be realistic about your options, make up your mind about the dude/dessert, and move forward.
Of course, problems of the heart have the added bonus of drama, which, to many people, is emotional crack, with a similar corrosive effect after prolonged exposure. That’s why people pay to see opera, soap and otherwise; the more painful the yearning and misunderstanding, the better. If there are vampires involved, forget about it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 13, 2012
During a recession of any size, work places often turn mean; salaries fall, everyone is afraid of layoffs and unemployment, and fear, like shit, flows downhill. In times like these, unless you’re a lucky member of the one percent, stress is not a preventable condition. A large part of the stress, however, comes from the feelings that you have about work, rather than the work itself. After all, if you feel like your office is a family, then a tense office will affect you way too personally. If you remember why you’re there, and keep your standards, you can keep a level head in a shitty economy, no matter what percentage you’re in.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve put up with a lot at this job, but this really takes the cake, and I’m not sure if it’s worth putting up with my boss’s bullshit anymore. So, recently I asked for a raise, but then my boss cuts my hours, so that I am basically making the same amount of money that I made before and the raise doesn’t even count. Is that even legal? Probably, because he’s studying to be a lawyer to find more ways his employees can get screwed. I’ve been working my butt off, and I’m getting nowhere. My goal is to get what I deserve.
We always have lots of feelings about our bosses, usually negative, that make us forget what we’re there for; not getting treated well, just getting paid.
When it comes to the people who have power over our lives—bosses, parents, political leaders—we expect nothing less than appreciation, fairness, security, a good income, justice, etc. No wonder the feelings are negative. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
